Kata Practice Guidelines

Learn about the do's and don'ts of good kata practice, as well as kata practice tools.

We'll cover the following

Do’s and Don’t#

The do’s and don’ts of good kata practice include the following:

Do:

  • Practice often (daily would be best).
  • Use the Practice Calendar as a guide to managing kata practice while learning new katas.
  • Keep your practice sessions short, approximately 15 to 30 minutes.

Don’t:

  • Copy and paste the commands. As tempting as this may be, we’ll want to develop the “muscle memory” of executing the commands by hand, as we would in a real-world situation.
  • Write scripts to automate the commands (for the same reason we shouldn’t copy and paste).
Do's
Do's
Don't
Don't
Do's
Do's
Don't
Don't
Do's
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  • Worry about fully understanding the katas the first time we execute them. As we practice the katas, read through the commands and summary if you need to refresh your memory. The broader context will come as we move through the Docker, Git, and Jenkins katas.

Kata practice tools#

Those who’ve already had a peek ahead at the katas, or perhaps even tried them out in the preview, may have some idea of what to expect from them. If not, this will be your first introduction to the tools used by this course.

Docker
Docker
Git
Git
Jenkins
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  • VirtualBox: This is an open-source software hypervisor to run virtual machines.

  • Ubuntu Linux: A distribution of the Linux operating system (OS).

It’s not unusual for those who are unfamiliar with them to be a little intimidated. Never fear! There are good reasons to use these tools, and this course will walk us through their setup step-by-step. They may seem complex, but rest assured, they’ll make our lives easier in the long run.

VirtualBox is used to run virtual machines. There’s more discussion about what virtual machines are in the Docker chapter. All we need to know, for the purpose of getting started, is that a virtual machine (VM) is an operating system running inside another operating system.

Ubuntu Linux is one of the more popular distributions (versions) of the Linux operating system. To be clear, Docker is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux. However, Windows and macOS require extra tools, and the user experience varies. Using a Linux VM will provide a consistent learning environment, regardless of the type of computer we may have.

Remember the bike-riding example earlier in this chapter? VirtualBox and Ubuntu Linux allow us to ride safely. VirtualBox is like the helmet and kneepads—creating a safe space within our Mac or PC to stub our toes, skin our knees, and generally have fun with DevOps tools. If we break something (a command doesn’t work or a configuration goes wrong), we’ve done it in an isolated virtual machine where no harm can be done to our host operating system. Katas are meant to be repeated, so we need a way to reset and restart quickly. As we’ll demonstrate, VirtualBox makes that easy.

Ubuntu is a perfectly sized bike that’s just right for learning to ride. By using a virtual machine, we can learn to interact with the DevOps tools in a consistent way. VirtualBox runs equally well on Mac and PC. Running an Ubuntu Linux VM, regardless of our host OS, will allow us to concentrate on the DevOps tools without having to worry about varying experiences between different operating systems.

Introduction to Katas

Sample Kata